On 5 pm
and being told
that a colleague
had committed suicide
earlier that day

What first greeted me

upon entering that room

were the sad, quiet faces

as we all sat around the table.

.

Thinking of her,

wondering why

and what happened

and some of it came out later.

.

But what was also on my thoughts

was finding out how management

had known about it all day long

as they readily pursued their disturbing calculation

.

In getting a full day’s work out of us

before breaking the news.

Brad Evans lives in the UK working as a community library assistant. His work has most recently appeared in Studio La Primitive, Northampton Poetry Review, Backlash, and The Journal.